My notes from “Who – The A Method for Hiring” book

byJosh NelsononApril 21, 2014

I am truly blessed to say that our company has grown at a very nice pace over the past 4 years and we are in the thick of growing & expanding our team. I believe that having the right members on the team is probably the most important aspect of our company going forward. In order to ensure that I am taking the best steps to attract and qualify the best talent I read the the book “Who: The A Method for Hiring” by Geoff Smart. It was a great book full of insights on how to hire the top talent for your team.

Below is recording of my key insights and findings from the book:

Pre-screening call

One of the biggest insights for me that had a direct impact on our hiring process was the notion of a “Pre-screening Call” prior to the interview. We invested hours interviewing many candidates and wasted alot of time. The book suggested having a structured “pre-interview” or “pre-screening” call prior to inviting a candidate in for an interview. Here are the questions they recommended for the pre-screening interview:

What are what are your career goals?

What are you really good at professionally?

What are you not so good at or not interested in doing professionally?

Who are your last 3 Bosses and how will they rate your performance on a scale from 1-10 when we talked to them?

Doing this saved us a lot of time and ensured we were only meeting with prime candidates.

Hiring Score Card

The book also referenced a “Hiring Score Card” that can be used to create clarity around what the role is, what it is intended to accomplish, what the team member will need to be good at, etc. I searched high and low for a “Hiring Score Card Template” but could not find one. I wound up create my own (highly simplified) version. You can access my version of the hiring scorecard below:

The “Top Grading Interview”

In Brad Smart’s unique Topgrading interview, you start by asking about College (if they attended) with simple ice-breaker questions like: how did you fit into school?; high/low points?; any awards/achievements?; greatest influence?; hold any jobs?; etc.

For the job-related questions, they suggest the following:

What were you hired to do?

What accomplishments were you most proud of…and what were your low points?

Who were the people you worked with and how would you rate them and they rate you

Why did you leave that job?

You should select a set of questions that feel right for you, and then keep them standard for all candidates.

This type of topgrading interview should take about anywhere from 2 to 4 hours depending on how experienced the candidate is.

The Reference Check Interview

The book emphasized the importance of checking references. Here are a few questions they recommend for those calls:

What was their role?

What were ups and downs of their performance?

How would you rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 10?

Remember, people don’t like to and in some cases won’t give a negative reference. Be sure to listen to the non-spoken indicators. If all they are willing to do is confirm employment…they probably did not consider that individual to be an A Player.

In summary

I found the book to be a great read and feel confident that it will help continue and grow our best in class team.